After church, Palin’s family posed for this picture, on the Alaskan coastline. Palin would later identify Libya in the background.

After two months of arduous campaigning–the My-Fair-Lady-coaching, the six-figure wardrobing, the Katie-Couric-catfight-to-end-all-catfights, etc.–Sarah Palin finally joined John McCain in conceding their party’s nomination to President Elect Barack Obama.

Returning to her office in Anchorage with several McC-aides, the state governor stood in front of a bay window that offered a breathtaking view of the shores of Tripoli, then sighed. “Y’know, I think this may be a historic moment for the North African Free Trade Agreement.” (An aide tried to correct her, but she roguely slapped him across the face). “Their country has never appointed a President, so we should welcome Obama to this continent with open arms.”

Palin’s comments puzzled reporters, who sought to broach the topic of foreign relations with her. She stood on the other side of her governor’s desk, flipping through a magazine. There were eight children in the room, some crawling, others drooling. One was named after a snowmobile company.

A reporter politely asked her what she was reading, and, unable to muster a reply, she started to cry. “If Todd were here” (her husband was out seal-clubbing) “he would tell you what a strain this has been on our family…not to mention our nation. Between Russia rearing its head in our airspace and Africa popping up on our border, foreign relations have become impossible around here.” Noticing the stunned look on reporters’ faces, Gov. Palin pulled down a screen-map of the Bering Strait. “Now do you see? Africa has moved into our sea space!” she cried, her voice reaching a frantic pitch. She began to babble, then speak in tongues.

WASHINGTON: Convening last week for a special session at the White House, Congress agreed to release the legendary “Six Trillion Dollar Man” from captivity. After eight years behind presidential bars, the man (who answers only to monosyllabic grunts, like “W”) has largely remained remote from the general public, which–as his close trainers claim–he fears for its harsh demands for taxes on the wealthy and their glutted corporations.

“W,” who declined an interview with Doubletake (but did gnaw on one of our cameraman’s ears–leaving a mark) replaced the Six Million Dollar Man in 1978 when Steve Austin’s no-bid construction contract with Halliburton expired. Since that time, W has been upgraded twice, in proportion to the amount of debt that he’s amassed along the way (in 2000, Y2-W was re-tooled as the 6 Billion Dollar Man and, after the recent mortgage/bank crises, he has assumed the mantle of 6TDM).

“The Fall Guy” (after cryogenic-hip-replacement surgery)

Top investment banks, which previously bank-rolled the current administration’s rise-to-power, now crumble in the wake of a meltdown that can be traced to the overly inflated price tag of the current administration’s titular tit-head.

“But taxpayers need not be too concerned,” Republican candidate John McCain observed on Thursday, at the White House, “I have a fool-proof plan to get our country back on track.” Anxious Congressional representatives huddled around Senator McCain, who stood calmly next to a shrouded figure. McCain waited until Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen fell to both knees at Nancy Pelosi’s feet, then whisked the shroud away:

Fearing the demise of her own species, Sarah Palin (seen here on a baby-seal-clubbing expedition) opposes evolutionism.

She has swept simian beauty pageants. Hitchhiked without using a (pre-hensile) thumb. Coupled with her life-long (running) mate in the Alaska wildlife refuge. And her banana peeling skills are said to be legendary.

She is Sarah Palin, the presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate for the 2008 Election.

She is a beauty contest winner, an expert sharpshooter, an obedient wife, and a proud mother. Every Sunday at her Pentecostal church, she can be found thumping her chest and swinging from the rafters, railing against the evils of evolution…for obvious reasons. Many members of her Alaskan cabinet of Intelligent Design have supported her views, though they lack the ability to hear, see, or speak about the complexities of the real world outside of their insulated habitat:

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil…

However, one survivor has seen, first-hand, the negative, global impact of this governor’s environmental policies…

This week, Doubletake’s film staff experienced considerable division over Sergei Bodrov’s epic film, “Mongol.” Half of us enjoyed it immensely (this editor hasn’t seen its like since the Broadway production of “Cats”), and the other half almost stormed out of the theater in an indignant flurry. In order to resolve this dispute, we invited two outsiders to settle the score.

Mr. Khan,

Let me guess. You’re feeling angry, irritable, even a little hostile? Your father was poisoned by Tatars. Until age 12, you ate only locusts and tree bark. When you stick your vassals’ heads on tall pikes, survivors find you “threatening.” Believe me: you’re not alone.

The work of a Mongol is no mean task. You demand utter loyalty from your men, but have you ever asked yourself what you’re really demanding from yourself? Those long hours you spend away from home, plundering and raiding…when you’ve yet to plunder the depths of your own heart?

Maybe it’s time to listen to the wise woman who once said: “it takes a village to raise a child” instead of razing villages to the ground, child-less. Speaking of children, what kind of world do you intend to conquer and leave for yours? Sure, Oqedei is the sole heir, but this might make Jochi, Chaqatai, and Tolui feel a little bit left out. And your 400 neglected illegitimate children: will they, too, spill their seed on fallow ground?

–Dr. Drew

This shaman think he know Mongol, but he don’t. Mongol no rely on fancy shaman-talk or special effect. Temujin, true Mongol, flay his hide with one hand tie behind back, then take hide and make kite, then take small intestine to make string, then use string to fly kite over shaman house in Hollywood hill. Temujin laugh so hard he wake neighbors who form small band to file noise complaint, but Temujin stamp them out like daisies in Gobi desert. Squat team try to stop Temujin but he just get started, not yet slake thirst on blood of celebrity horde that misrepresent him in film. Maybe horde bring producer. Maybe then Temujin stop…if George Clooney agree to play him in sequel.

Son of Chico wants to intervene, if–and only if–Dad is indeed a drug mule

Don’t get me wrong: I love my dad…but I think he might be a drug-mule.

I first had my suspicions when dad came home from work, four hours past his curfew, reeking of hashish and Old English. He insisted that I call him “Chico,” then passed out in the guest bathroom. Half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. Immersed in a marathon stretch of “Dancing with the Stars,” suffice it to say, I was in no mood to abandon my spot.

The man at the door was six-foot-four and hirsute. He demanded to speak to my father.

“You mean, Chico?” I asked. Within seconds, the man had me in a choke-hold and started pummeling me. He threatened me in Spanish, or at least I think it was Spanish. My two years of French in high school did not facilitate the negotiation process.

He bound me to the armoire–a sensation that I found not altogether unpleasant–then asked for my father again. I’m not sure what followed in our conversation…was it a coded initiation into a life of crime? Harmless banter about 1970’s prime-time television?

“Ese, strada.”

“Estrada. Qui, Eric est tres macho.”

“Oye tio! No es un amigo mio. Y te papi?”

“Dans le salles de bannes.”

“Mon-tel-ban? Ricardo?”

“Quois?”

“Ricardo Montelban?”

“Non. Tatoo.”

“Ah, si. Tatoo. The Plane, the plane.”

A few minutes later, dad limped out of the bathroom, where he’d been busy retrieving the goods. The man shrugged. All was business as usual: just another simple transaction with a card-carrying member of AARP who wedged half-a-kilo inside his body cavity.

But still…something doesn’t sit well inside of me. I’m not 100 percent certain, but something tells me that Chico just might be a drug mule. It’s possible, of course, that I’m reading too much into this. He is retired, afterall. And those AARP trips sure mean a lot to him.

WASHINGTON: Despite mounting concerns over our nation’s current economic crises (in crumbling housing markets, sky-rocketing gas prices, and rising penalties on nocturnal emissions), the President put his cabinet at ease this afternoon by offering a “bona-fide gare-ahn-tee” that he would remunerate the 1/2 trillion dollars owed by his current administration.

“Look here,” he said, “I know we’ve racked up a pretty penny here, but I have taken measures to pay back every yen–ahem–dollar. Now a standard, government-issued I.O.U. just ain’t going to cut it, so we’ve added a few extra O’s. Why? Because I owe you so big that I oooooooooooowe you.”

At this point, Ed McMahon (of Publisher’s Clearing House) appeared with his latest wife, Yvette, and a giant-sized check.

Yvette may or may not be pictured here (depending on the reliability of Ed’s memory)

Doubletake is a weekly (and sometimes daily) blog for anyone out there in the blogosphere who’s interested in, well, virtually anything going on in the world: literature, news, politics, movies, music, pop culture…
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